Recently in Book of the Week Category

There's always a couple of them isn't there?

The books you think about reading for years - they've been recommended by everyone and are rapidly turning to dust on your shelves... yet you still don't find the time...

Well, I found the time and the Bookseller of Kabul was one of those books - thank goodness I finally read it...

By day I am a hard-nosed journalist, trotting the streets of Liverpool to sniff out the news the people in this city demand to read.

By night I am a 6ft chicken  - frightened of horror films, the dark, roller coasters, sky diving, spiders and generally all things not wrapped in cotton wool.

In short, over cautious about fairly mundane things.

For that I am happy to blame my childhood. Or more, specifically, my childhood reading...

I sighed when I closed the final page of this book.

I was addicted, absorbed and exhausted. Shocked but horribly enlightened.

The first line in this book is "Dear Osama" and the last is "WITH INCREDIBLE NOISE AND FURY"

So what of the inbetween?

I've been a journalist exactly five years now and if this profession has altered me at all - it's made me less able to cry, particularly when it comes to books and films.

So it always comes as a surprise - and I'll admit an unwelcome one - when I get that lump in the throat.

I read The Five People You Meet In Heaven this weekend - I'd heard such good things about it I couldn't resist grabbing it half price in a popular supermarket...

I don't know whether to be offended.

I walked into work to find someone had left a book on my desk.

It was the book pictured left - Who's Afraid of Jane Austen by Henry Hitchens.

The strapline? How to REALLY talk about the books you haven't read...

As some of you may know (I go on about it enough) I've always wanted to visit India - The White Tiger and Shantaram are two of the reasons why.

Well, I've finally decided to go for it and have booked a two week trip to the country in November.

So with travel in mind I thought I would review a slightly different book ... but one I think you might enjoy...

Some of you may have noticed... I'm a girl.

Therefore, certain folk may consider the books I chose to read and review 'girlie'.

Feminist outrage aside, The Wire creator David Simon could hardly be called a 'girlie' guy (be it a compliment or an insult) although both men and women love his work.

Here Post and ECHO reporter Gary Stewart (not a girl) reviews David Simon and Ed Burns' Baltimore crime epic, The Corner...

Now, here is a book I've been meaning to read for some time - the giveaway might be the fact The God of Small Things won the Booker Prize in the dim and distant days of 1997.

Twelve years ago. Oh dear.

But are the advertising executives responsible for promoting a certain brand of Irish stout correct when they say ... good things come to those who wait?

Let's see...

This is a quirky little tale.

A Case of Exploding Mangoes is based on the true life plane crash that killed Pakistan's military ruler General Zia ul-Haq - and most of his gang - in 1988.

Don't worry, it's not a heavy novel, it's exactly the opposite.

There was apparently never a public investigation into the crash, which throws it wide open for conspiracy theorists... and people like this author and former Pakistan air officer Hanif to form their own entertaining explanations.

Hands up if you like feeling mildly uncomfortable.

How about guilty? Happy feeling guilty?

Nope, me neither ... I get that twisting feeling that I should do more to change the world. Then I inevitably reach for another kit kat ... and another book.

Still, perhaps we all do more than we realise - boycotting the Daily Mail maybe or spoiling that perfectly friendly dinner party by arguing with the I'm-not-a-bigot bigot in the corner.

I think you should read this book.